Plancha Grilling Recipes - Cooking On A Cast iron Hot Plate

The section is dedicated to plancha grilling recipes which effectively means that you are cooking on a cast iron hot plate.

You may find folk refer to it as a griddle, being European we know it as a plancha because it's an extremely popular cooking method in Spain but if you've been to Argentina then you'd refer to this method of cooking as "a la chapa".

The plancha is a fantastic tool for vegan barbecue cooking because it means that you can cook over direct heat without worrying about anything sticking to the grill grates, breaking up and loosing your veggies in the coals. I find it particularly handy for burger and koftas when I want quite a dry mix for my patty. The smooth side is also great for pancakes.

To get smoke flavour into any of my plancha grilling recipes just add your wood pellets to the fire and place your plancha on top.

What makes a good plancha?

There is wealth of different plancha hot plates that you can buy for your grill. The essential features are as follows:

Good thick metal: Mine is cast iron but there are some very good ones made out of high quality stainless steel.

Reversible: One side has a flat surface and the other side is ribbed. This gives you the greatest cooking flexibility and the ribbed side gives wonderful sear marks to sliced veggies.

A lip to the edge: This stops oils and juices dripping off the plancha and onto the coals.

This style of plancha is ribbed on one side and flat on the other.

I use the Monolith one simply because I know that it fits my Classic grill and it meets all three criteria - it also can be used on Le Chef and other grill brands too.

Dependent on what you are cooking (or for how many) then you may want to consider upgrading to something like this!

Note: You may find that other websites will tell you that a plancha should have a drip tray or grease hole where you can scrape away the fat. This is only relevant if you are cooking large quantities of meat so not something that is going to be important for plant based veggie cooking.

How To Look After Your Plancha

A brand new plancha may have factory grease or dirt on it so wash with warm soapy water prior to first use and they dry well.

Next you need to season your plancha. Wipe the two surfaces with vegetable oil and be generous, place the on your grill (indirect set up) and bake it for an hour at 150°C (300°F).

Allow to cool and then wipe clean and you're ready to cook.

Cleaning

If you've taken your plancha off the grill to serve then replace it over the coals. Get it super hot and then pour over a cup of water.

Note: Take care doing this because some of the water will immediately rise as steam and can scorch.

Scrub with a grill brush as the water bubbles and continues to evaporate until your plancha is free of debris.

When clean (and cool) wipe over the plancha surfaces with vegetable oil and store your plancha in a dry place until next needed.

How To Use The Plancha

Dependent on what you are cooking you can cook with your plancha either directly over the coals or indirectly (with the heat deflector stones in). Each of the plancha grilling recipes below will advise how to set up to get the best cooking results.

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